Thurston Marshall (b. 1949) is a full professor of English at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, as well as serving as the guest editor for the October 2009 issue of Ploughshares. He owns a cabin on Chester Lake in Chester's Mill, Maine. On Dome Day, he was vacationing at his cabin with Carolyn Sturges. They were apparently unaware of the appearance of the barrier until the morning of 23 October 2009, when the western side of the town was evacuated for a missile strike.